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There's nothing mysterious about this. I'm pretty sure that answer is that Apple wishes to make more per sale than Amazon or Rhapsody or Napster. It seems much more likely that record companies have a fixed rate at which they sell songs and that Apple's markup from the wholesale price they pay for the song is $0.10 more than Amazon and others.
That may be true, but I don't know.
I just don't TRUST them.
How the "value" of media is determined is so loopey that I just can't trust them to give me a fair price on their own -- so outside entity (in this case Apple) needs to be there to force them to be fair to consumers.
Look at how TV shows are "valued" these days. A boxed season of "Deadwood" costs $100.00?? How was that "value" determined?
All I know is that if it were Microsoft that came out with iTunes instead of apple -- we'd all be paying $1.99 for new releases. Or RENTING them with some kind of subscription service (an even bigger rip off, IMHO). Who really wins when you pay someone (like Apple or Microsoft or Amazon) $120 a year to "rent" a single from Fergie?
